First Impression…
When I first enter the web site www.france24.com, I thought “It looks like a proper news website, it seems serious and the design is not exceptional but it is not bad.”
People I asked around me had almost the same impression. Even though everyone was saying that it seems quite a good website, we all agree on the fact that it was slightly messy, as there is like a huge flow of information and you don’t know where to click!
For my critic I had to analyze this website as a journalist, and try to see what the audience may not see at the first visite. I realized that France 24 is reputed and good TV broadcaster, but as far as the website is concerned there are quite a few things that can be improved.
The colour scheme is blue and white. Those colours match most of the time perfectly, but when it comes to a screen of computer that as a journalist of today you have to watch for hours, the white text against the flashy blue really hurt the hurt the eyes.
But in my opinion one thing is good with the colours chosen. France 24 is a huge broadcaster; you can at any time of the day watch the news in French, English or Arabic. Obviously, you have the choice of language for the website. It is really international news related, so when I think about blue and white I always have the picture of the world in my mind.
There is free space on the sides, but the design of the web site makes that it looks if all the information was squeezed in the middle and you don’t know where to go. It is not clear when you first look at the page to find out what is a piece of video or what is a written entry.
It is definitely a multimedia web site, as you can see the “read the article or camera” signs, but as for me they haven’t made it clear enough. You just have to compare with the BBC home page website and everything become really clear.
On the BBC one you just have to let yourself orientated by the page. It is really clear where you have TV, Script or radio pieces. On France 24’s home page you really have to look close because first, the colours are quite flashy and it hurts and then things are not obvious you have to look in deep to find what you want.
To conclude on First impressions, I would say that the positive aspect of the site is that is seems to be a multimedia one except there are no radio sound bites. And the home page just looks like a bloc of information.
Writting…
About the writting, what I think there is to say is not that great. All the articles have the same layout. They don’t really follow Nielsen’s F rules as the heading is situted on the top right in a box (again it is in white against a flashy blue background). On the top left you can find a picture or a video. Moving from the right to read the heading and then going on the left to start with the article , make you witch your eyes.
I am alsmost sure that most of the people who don’t know the web site will start with the article and realise after that the heading was on the top right. The articles desn’t look really structured. In none of the articles I have read there is subtitle. The paragraphs are quite short but the articles themselves are long so it is like a little “rest” to have subtitles. It is really important if you don’t want the reader to move from your site.
There are no links to redirect the reader somewhere else if he wants to extand his knowledge on the subject. The only few that you can find are situated in a column shape on the right inside of the page. It is much more convinient for the reader to have tthem included inside the text.
Something catch my eyes as well. In most of the French newspaper and website’s articles, the name of the writer appears at the end of the article or the trend tends to put it at the begining nowadays. OnFrance 24’s website it very difficult to find it. It appears in really small on top the heading.
In my opinion, the writting doesn’t keep the reader interested. While reading the article you quickly want to move because it is not easy to read as it doen’t have an organisation.
Content…
It is definetly a web 2.0 site because you can react an leave comments to the article. Nowadays it is really important that the audience participate in an active way, they feel like they have n opinion to express and internet is here as a media which make people talk.
The selling point of the web site is, I think, the multimedia aspect of it. Ror every single article you have picture but most of the tim is videos For someone, who remember better by seeing images than reading, it is really good. You can associate a visual for the news that yo are reading. It is verry important in a web site of today.
The inernational aspect of the web site is also very atractive. In English, Arabic and French you can be aware of what is happening in the world. Someone who doesn’t speak French can have a french point of view on the world’s news by cgoing on the english version of the site.
What is missing on the site is a kind of enterteinment category. You don’t have the wether or smething softer that proper hard news or heavy subjects.
The interactive documentary, focus on cities or features, give a chance to improve his own general knowledge.
In brief, there are a lot of interesting things to learn present in the site. When it come to content there are not many things wrong to say. What I found strange is not to have just sound bites for illustrting the articles.
I found only few quotes in the articles, as it show once again, in my opinion that France 24 is better for TV than for writting in order to properly inform and entertain the audience at the same time.
Navigation…
It is not possible to say that navigation is hard. But I could be easier. At the top right inside of the hom page, there are quite a few categories but the lay out looks desorganised. Categories are missing as for instance there is no political category.
The great thing is that you can choose the news regarding the continent, which gave the opportunity to have a whole aspect of what is happening in the world.
When you enter an article, the navigation is not really an easy task. The links are situted t the end of the article, I personnally think that they are more useful incorporated inside the article. so t reader can choose while reading if he wants to go deeper into his understanding of the story.
It is not clearly indicated when it is video or article. So if you want to watch videos only, you don’t really know where to go.
What I like on this wbsite in terms of navigation is that, next to the article you have a lot of associated articles, or similar topics. It is very good for the ones who want to understand better the subject.
To conclude I would say that France 24’s website is in general a good news website, in term of content, all the important news ofthe world are explained but in terms of design there are many things that, in my opinion need to be changed.
